A couple were trapped inside their wrecked car for 30 minutes after a motorway crash because emergency services could not find them.

The young man and woman were still conscious when the fire, ambulance and police eventually found them in woodland off the M4.

A leading firefighter who attended the scene said he was concerned only one person reported the accident and then they drove off having given the wrong location.

The brigade received a call at about 8.15pm yesterday from a motorist who reported seeing a car leaving the westbound carriageway and heading into the woods between junctions 11 and 12.

In fact, the mini had come off the road between junctions 12 and 13 and when the brigade arrived the caller had left and they struggled to locate the wrecked car in the dark, foggy conditions.

The mini had left the carriageway, gone down an embankment, hit a tree, spun around and stopped two feet from a drainage culvert.

The couple were cut out of the badly damaged car and taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford with serious injuries.

Watch manager Andrews said: "Everybody has got a mobile phone. People shouldn't assume somebody else has made the call. If they see an emergency they have a duty to call.

"Also, somebody should stay at the scene. Because this caller didn't stop it caused us a lot of problems. If you come across an incident we need to know where it is as quickly as possible to give people the best possible chance."